


Stocks & Shares

by Head_Of_Ianus



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, A cheap 2006 Casino Royale Sequel, Accidentally Adopting A Teenager, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone is angry, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, James Bond Being an Asshole, Le Chiffre Has A Daughter, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Q and Bond have a difficult relationship, Realistically Living with Past Sexual Abuse, Stock Market Crimes, Technicalities Of Buying & Selling Stock, discussion of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25073767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Head_Of_Ianus/pseuds/Head_Of_Ianus
Summary: Eight years after Le Chiffre was killed, another airplane prototype is blown up, someone is making a fortune at the stock market, and Le Chiffre's biological daughter Cécile Bauer turns up at MI6 headquarters to ask for protection after nearly being kidnapped. Trying to figure out who this faux Le Chiffre is and how to stop them, James Bond eventually finds himself stuck with an angry,  run-away teenager and an equally pissed off Q, chasing and being chased by a shadow of a long gone past.
Relationships: James Bond/Q, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, again, I want to warn anyone reading this that in later chapters, there are going to be discussions of past sexual abuse and rape recovery. I've been trying, to the best of my abilities, to make it more of a realistic portrayal (based on my own and a few friends' recoveries) instead of an over-dramatization, if that makes any sense. Please do still comment when you find something to be disrespectful. 
> 
> I also want to note that while the recovery and discussion bit is an important part of the story, it's also mostly handled as a subplot. Because that's just what past sexual abuse is for many of us, it's a part and a subplot of our life, and not our entire being.
> 
> .. Anyway, I am just babbling at this point :) Off we go!

This was like bloody 2006 all over again.

All but skidding to a screeching halt, Bond barely avoided crashing into the car in front of him that had come to a less than gentle stop. His target's driver had lost grip while taking a sharp curve and run himself into a tree with a terrible screech and crack. The crumpled hood suggested quite a nasty scene waiting for him.

With the last rays of the setting sun blinding him, Bond swung his car door open and made to get out. Between blinking, a spot of colour flashed through the corner of his eye and a bang echoed — Bond crouched behind the door just as the bullets started raining down.

Bless Q-Branch for reinforcing the doors for severe impact resistance.

Bond sat very still as the foul smell of sulphuric gun powder was starting to close in on him, and he concentrated. Hidden beneath the thundering sound of open fire, there was a numb pounding, irregular but persistent.

It was easy enough to hear, between each shot.  
Someone clearly wasn‘t bothered with being quiet.

The person was closing in on his car. The pounding had started out straight ahead of him, but now it was shifting to his right — around the hood of his car. He shifted on his feet and turned towards his steering heel. Bullets were now crashing through the front window, searing just above his head.

Bond shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Tensing, he lifted himself onto his toes, straight into the line of fire. Bullets flashing past his head, he spotted a silhouette.

And then, Bond took a breath in — the fire ceased, an empty clip perhaps — and Bond was up, shot fired, recoil straight through his joints, target down, breath out. A distinct sound of gurgling came up from the other side of the car. Bond grimaced. He would have preferred a clean kill.

“Confirm status?“, Q‘s voice nudged him over rustling comms.

“Shots fired, Q. Target's down but still alive. I don‘t think an ambulance could get out here in time, though.“

“Any injuries on you that require medical evaluation?“

“Negative.“  
Peaking over the hood, he could see his attacker gasping for air. Collapsed lung, evidently. His shaggy hair was covering his face, but Bond could see the entire body trembling as the man struggled to breathe. There was just one problem: This wasn‘t his target. That was the driver. Numb pounding right behind him. Bond blinked, moved and -

“Fuck!“

The impact to his shoulder sent Bond straight to the rough asphalt, knocking the wind out of him. His gun had dropped a few meters away from him, too far away for him to reach.

He groaned as he tried to get his lungs and limbs to cooperate and move, but he wasn‘t getting an immediate response, and this was bad. The pounding was approaching.

Finally, dragging himself up and back, he was getting closer to his gun — the target lifted his own, aimed — Bond felt the familiar texture of his Walther underneath his fingertips, but the other man's finger was already on his trigger -

Another loud bang and the target dropped dead.

Behind him, Felix Leiter stood with his most self-satisfied grin. Groaning, Bond let himself sink back to the ground, elbows scratched bloody from shuffling over the rough ground.

“I heard a senior citizen had fallen, and I immediately came to help.“

“How about you use your impeccable comedic timing and help me before I get shot next time, Felix?“

“You‘d wind up dead, James. I‘d advise strongly against that.“

Leiter chuckled at his own joke and swaggered towards him, stepping over the corpse of the man he‘d just shot. Even though his friend offered him a hand in getting up, he swore as the sharp lightening of pain spread throughout his shoulder and chest upon getting his feet back underneath him.

Q made himself known, again, and Bond could have sworn he could hear the frown over the comms:

“What has just happened, 007?“

“I thought the driver had died crashing into the tree. He didn‘t, and I took him down instead of the target. Leiter got the target, though.“

“Which, if I interpreted that sound correctly, means you got shot.“

Not a question, just a flat statement. Tracing Leiter with his eyes as the other man heaved the bodies back into their vehicle, Bond chose to sit down in his friends‘ car. As Leiter started making some calls for the disposal of the bodies, Bond knew he now would have to handle an entirely different confrontation. He gritted his teeth in anticipation of what was to come:

“Bullet, straight to the shoulder.“

“I‘d advise seeking medical treatment for that as soon as you get back to London, better yet, before you get back.“

“Understood, Q.“

A traitorous silence took up the comms, and there it was, there was the conflict between them he‘d known was coming, closing in slowly. He tried to shake the building tension out of his muscles, and already knew what Q would say next with an unusual grit in his voice:

“Bond. Confirm whether or not you intend to seek medical treatment.“

“Yes, Q, for fuck‘s sake. I am going to have someone remove the bloody bullet.“

Another break.

“Lovely“, there was the shift of tone Bond had hoped for, back to light and content,

“Your flight is at around 0300, I‘m sending you the flight information and ticket in a minute. Safe travels, contact us if you require any help or directions.“

“Thank you, Q, have a good day.“

“And you.“

Bond massaged his temples for a brief moment and noted a slight headache coming on. Bloody Q and his resentfulness. Leiter got into the driver seat and looked rather content as Bond followed him in.

“The bodies are gonna be picked up in about half an hour, so we should be good for now.“

“What about my car?“

“Don‘t worry, she's gonna be picked up and brought back as well, Jimmy.“

“Jesus Christ, Felix, don‘t call me Jim-“

“I like that new Q fella, by the way. He's a bit more stern than anyone else I‘ve ever seen working with you. A lot more resilient as well.“

Some parts of Bond agreed. But most of him just wished Q would get off his back a bit more, and leave him to do his job. He‘d always been fine on his own so far, and he still was. Leiter didn‘t seem to notice the way Bond‘s lips tightened.

“Heh, last time someone was able to take you down a peg like that was in 2006 as well, this really is starting to feel like a cheap rip-off.“

Leiter laughed. Bond didn‘t think it was funny, he didn‘t even bother to fake a smile. It wouldn‘t have convinced his friend anyway. The headache was building, and at this rate, it was going to become a full-on tension migraine by the time he was back in London and facing Q again. He‘d probably still have the bullet in, and handing over the equipment would probably not go over too well in combination with a migraine.

“Do you have some pain killers in here?“

Leiter, knowing Bond as well as he did, got the clue to just drop the topic and sighed. Bond made it a point to ignore the way his friend shook his head and stared at him with furrowed brows for a few seconds.

“They are in the glove compartment. Help yourself.“

The drive back to their hotel took quite a while.

Bond had chased after the target for almost an hour before they had crashed, and as soon as the pain killers kicked in, Bond didn‘t bother with making conversation any more. Leiter seemed to be quite content with that, anyway. As his friend hummed along to some song on the radio, he just stared out onto the flat meadows and fields blurring by.

Thunderclouds were stacking up, and some trees started shaking slightly.

It was a nifty thing, short selling shares, Bond decided. Borrowing shares from a company and then selling them immediately in hopes to scoop them back up later for a lower price and return the shares to whomever you borrowed from.

If one was lucky enough, they could get quite rich from the difference between the price at which they sold and then bought. If one however happened to have a bad day, they might sell a borrowed share, have the worth of said share increase, and then need to buy the share back at a dramatic increase. Had Bond felt any inclination to take a closer look at the stock market, he might have tried his hand at it, just for the adrenaline it might provide.

Shorting was risky business, it was hardly calculable, frankly: It was gambling at its finest.

Unless you were able to take the luck out of the equation and could replace it with certainty, of course.

Le Chiffre, back in the day, had known with certainty that the worth of the airline shares he had borrowed and sold for millions would dwindle down to nothingness if there just happened to be an accident related to that airline. Hadn‘t Bond hindered his little spiel back then, had the airplane truly exploded, Le Chiffre could have bought the shares back for what amounted to change in the man's eyes and could have returned the shares to the lender. The multi-million difference would have been all his.

And in good old 2006 fashion, someone had tried to pull the same trick again.  
When the first airplane prototype blew up — Boeing's new 777X — it had been a shock, but the entire thing had also been too reminiscent of the debacle merely eight years ago for the CIA not to check the stock market. And just like back then, someone had been shorting airline shares and was making a fortune from the disaster.

The similarities were laughable. When he had been briefed, Bond had been worried briefly that Le Chiffre had risen from the dead, until he had remembered that he had felt some of the bastard's brain splatter against his leg before passing out. Not even he himself could have come back from that.

No, it was an imposter, or a copycat, rather. And considering how little subtlety they had chosen to show in whose image they were acting, they either wanted to be noticed or were exceedingly stupid. It was all a bit of a mystery.

Figuring out the airline that would be bombed next wasn‘t as hard, though. Under different circumstances, Bond might have appreciated the quip inherit in blowing up a plane called “Boom Overture“ — in the current, he knew very well that the entire airline would go bankrupt if this, their most innovative project yet, would go, well, boom. Speaking of airplanes, actually.

Bond had sunk down in his seat, but as they pulled into the underground garage of their hotel, he made the effort to sit up a bit. Brain slightly frizzy from the pain killers and the quiet of their drive, he shared a lopsided smirk:

“Do you think we are going to catch the asshole before they figure out we advised airlines to postpone the showings of their planes and start blowing up the ones in service, Felix?“

“100 bucks says we won‘t, tragic as that is.“

“You got a lot of trust in us and our colleagues‘ competence and skills, huh?“

Getting out of his car and stretching slightly, his friend shrugged and peered down at him through the opened car door before he slammed it shut.

“It's called realistic thinking. You can‘t tell me you really think we‘re gonna get this done before someone dies, can you?“

“I‘m hoping to avoid as much collateral damage as possible.“

“Well, hoping is not the same as believing, is it, now?“

The garage stunk of wet concrete and emptiness as Bond followed suit and got out of the car. The last rays of the sun had been fading for a while, and now there was only the shrill light of fluorescent tubes left, flickering every so often. It all reeked of post-adrenaline exhaustion mixed with blood and injuries and painkillers, thank god for the painkillers, and Bond felt amiably buzzed now:

“100 quid says we‘re going to get them, if that makes it clear enough for you.“

“Crystal. Anyway, as long as the Overture doesn‘t spontaneously combust overnight it shouldn‘t be our problem for now. Also, if your flight back to London really is later tonight, we should use the time to catch up.“

The two of them were closing in on a steel door embedded in concrete that would probably lead them to an elevator straight up to the lobby, and Bond found he couldn‘t agree more. It had been a while since the two of them had worked together, but he was dumbfounded they still complimented each other as well as they did. Muscle memory, maybe. Catching up would be good in any case.

They were already in the elevator when Felix checked his burner phone for messages, and Bond idly wondered if anyone in the lobby would bother asking about his bloody shirt. The elevator music was carefully dimmed to barely background noise level.

“Huh, well that's interesting for sure.“

Furrows had formed between Leiter's eyebrows as he stared at the screen of his phone. Bond looked over at him and waited. If it truly was something that concerned this mission and the two of them, Leiter would tell him. Still frowning, his friend eventually handed over his phone, the screen showing a smudgy photograph of a young woman -

Bond faltered, and suddenly he was back in Casinos and hotel suites. With a flash of sharp cheekbones and corners of a cruel mouth always tucked down, he was back to his car turning mid-air, the crack of impact, to sweat and blood and dark backrooms, back to happier days and worse endings, back to Queens, Kings, Jacks.

This really was a fucking 2006 rip-off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An introduction to Cécile and her situation.  
> A bit more swearing than before :)

Cécile Bauer was about five minutes from breaking something for stress relief.

She had checked into "Le Petit Fleur" in the rundown part of Saint Omer, France sometime around the late afternoon, when the summer sun had still been screaming in the narrow alleyways downtown. On the way to a grocer around the corner, she had given her phone a last longing look before tossing it in the glittering river murmuring beside the street. She had found her new freedom to taste quite bitter.

Now that the last rays of the sun were fading, she was starting to turn over her financial situation in her head. She had avoided the topic on her headless journey to St. Omer, too preoccupied with processing her last 24 hours and afterward too scared to face the uncomfortable truth awaiting her. Now that a layer of fog had lifted, and she found herself thinking more logically, Cécile understood quite well she was running low on money. Her access to her bank account had been frozen in the morning, and she had had to spend most of her cash on train tickets, over-priced food at train stations, and her room for the night. She rubbed her eyes and groaned. She would have to figure out a solution to that issue sooner or later.

"Le Petit Fleur" was on the corner of two narrow alleys plastered with cobblestone, a facade with once beautiful ornaments, and two rows of windows stacked atop each other, looking out on the street. As she came closer to her hotel, Cécile tried to track the position of her own room, and eventually spotted the white curtain she had closed in front of her window. There was a light burning inside, and she frowned — It had still been light out when she had left her room, why — and then a silhouette moved behind the curtain. Her eyes widened briefly. What the actual fuck. Another brief movement. Cécile stopped dead in her tracks. Someone was in her room, where she kept the rest of her money, trying to drag her even deeper into the shit she was already in. She clenched her teeth, eyes narrowing in on the thieves in her room. Yeah, this wasn‘t going to happen, no way.

Her hand was clenching around her plastic bag. They were still in there. She could still get to them, still make sure they wouldn‘t take her bloody money. She pushed off the uneven pavement and ran, shoving her way through the other passers-by blocking her way, smashing through the hotel entrance and reception — she almost crashed into the receptionist. The older woman stared at her, startled, and then cursed something Cécile didn‘t understand and didn‘t care about, because she was already halfway up the stairs, steps pounding. Ready to get her fucking money back.

The dirty carpet covering her hotel corridor swallowed up the impact of soft shoe soles hitting the ground much better, and Cécile was panting already in the stale hot hotel air, but the walls were thin in here, and there were voices inside her room.

Deep, low, gravelly voices speaking in mocking, harsh manners.

Cécile came to a halt in the middle of the corridor, chest heaving. Paces away from her money, she stared at the door in front of her, barely blinking at all, because - What the hell was she doing here? Was she actually trying to get herself killed?

“Ah, money underneath the mattress, really?“, a man announced.

His voice had an alien croak and an accent Cécile couldn‘t entirely place, but he was gloating for sure. The other man made a low sound similar to a chuckle, and the man with the croak continued:

“Chiffre could have left her some money at least, or taught her a thing or two about not leaving it out to be stolen like that. God, that's idiotic.“

“Did you really expect him to be a stellar father?“

“I had expected his kid to be at least somewhat intelligent, let's put it like that.“

This was about fucking Le Chiffre?  
The floor creaked as Cécile shifted her weight backward. The simmering heat in her chest demanded not to let these men walk all over her like that. The tingling electricity twitching in her arms and legs begged her to get the fuck out of here.

“You know, considering her dad died smashing someone's balls in, you might want to be careful what you -“

In her clenched, twitched hand, the plastic bag shook and rustled, and Cécile was jumpy and — dropped the bag. The impact was muffled, but it was there. To her, it was deafening. Then there was silence. Cécile's heart skipped a beat. No steps from behind the walls. No voices. The gusts outside were rattling the windows. Someone shuffled over to the door, coming closer -

She took a breath in and bowed down to her bag. Uttering the French curse she‘d heard the receptionist use, she picked the bag up, and forced herself to walk down the corridor slowly, even as the handle of the door was already pressed down, even as the tingling in her legs was telling her to sprint — and due to some miracle, the man behind the door paused and didn‘t push it open further until she had almost reached the corner — just a few steps, just a few more moments, and she‘d be safe -

The door creaked open with a scream echoing endlessly between the walls that made up the corridor, and Cécile swung around the corner with the swish of rustling plastic, and then there was — nothing.

No sudden outcry. No one hurrying after her. A few more steps into the stairwell and the door creaked again, and Croak muttered something about how they should be quieter if the walls really were that thin. Cécile let out a breath she‘d been holding, pressed her hand against her chest, and underneath, her heart was hammering. Fucking Le Chiffre out of all people. Dead and gone for almost a decade, and he had still managed to drag her into his shit. God, this was stupid, what would they even want from her? She kept checking if someone was coming up the stairwell or down the corridor, but she only spotted the thunderclouds stacking up on the horizon through the open window. A gust pushed through it and she shivered. This wasn‘t a safe enough place to stay. Ears tuned to any noise of creaking stairs or muffled steps, she started slinking down the stairwell.

“We could still check with the receptionist, you know?“,

The door had opened again. Croak and his colleague had slipped outside, but this time Cécile stopped herself from freezing and braved down the steps. The men were on her heels without knowing it, even and unfaltering pounding nearing the stair, and she needed to find a place to hide right now. She turned around herself, and there — underneath the stairwell — was a laundry trolley filled with bedsheets. Pushing it aside, its wheels screeched horrifically. Cécile felt the sound echo in her fingertips, but she had to keep going. Slipping in the corner behind the trolley and pushing it back into place, the cool moist walls enveloped her. Under them, the sound of steps coming down was louder. Cécile clenched her fists but was careful not to rustle the bag this time. The men passed over her head. Her shoulders were up to her ears, tense and painful. The only thing left to do was wait. She breathed in for five seconds. The men were at the bottom of the stairs now, and surely they would stop now, turn around to take a look at the trolley, and call her bluff immediately.

— There wasn‘t even a falter in their steps as they left the stairwell and stepped up to the reception. The old receptionist that she had almost run over earlier greeted the man with curt tone. She would tell them Cécile had almost crashed into her earlier. Cécile could see disaster approaching. She held her breath for two seconds.

“I‘m quite sorry, but do you happen to know if the young woman that recently checked in is still here? I‘m pretty sure she is an old colleague's daughter and I would really like to catch up with her“, Croak inquired.

Cécile exhaled for eight seconds. The lady at the reception paused, but finally replied:

“Ah, she went out earlier, after inquiring about a shop nearby. I‘d assume she went there, but she has not yet returned, unfortunately.“

“Well, thank you, then. Have a lovely day, then, ma‘am.“

“And you, gentlemen.“

Inhale, Hold, Exhale. After that, the two men had left the hotel, and all was silent for a minute or two. Then, clicking heels on tiles approached her hiding spot, and with an elongated screech, the reception lady pushed the trolley aside. Cécile stared up at the tall, grey lady in her smart attire, and despite herself rasped out:

“Thank you.“

She turned up her wrinkling nose, but offered Cécile a hand as she got up:

“I don‘t like people breaking into my hotel rooms. These men were bad business, and making a living hard enough without bad publicity.“

“Thank you, anyway.“

“Now, young lady, bad publicity includes you causing trouble. Pack your things and leave. Preferably before these men return, and I‘d prefer it even more if you just left the city altogether.“

The lady looked as though she wanted to say something more for a second, but eventually just nodded. She returned to her reception, curt voice announcing:

“Oh, and I‘ll have to keep the money you paid for the room.“

Cécile groaned with an appropriate amount of frustration.

When Cécile left the hotel, the oppressive heat that had kept the town in its grip the entire day had lifted, and the thunderclouds had fully taken up the sky. It smelt of rain and electricity and change. The men had left the money, they had left her clothes, they had even left her documents. She had packed it all, and then she had decided on a plan. They were after her for Le Chiffre. For a man, her father, that had been killed eight years prior, for reasons she had only found out years later because of some intensive digging in the dirt. A gust of wind tousled her hair as she strode across the now empty streets of Saint Omer. It was time to take a bus to London.

* * *

“I see that you still have the bloody bullet in your shoulder“,

Standing in front of his desk, Q had his hands braced on his hips. The constant buzzing of running systems and servers was background noise Bond supposed he only noticed because he wasn‘t down here as often. It was still early in the morning, and there were few minions bustling about. Bond's headache hadn‘t lifted since yesterday:

“I see that you still have that stick up your ass, Q.“

Q opened his mouth for a moment, but stopped and frowned at him instead. He did that sometimes, stared at him as though he was an equation he was trying to solve, or a piece of code he wanted to understand or an especially peculiar puzzle. Bond was doing something Q couldn‘t get behind. It might have been adorable one another occasion. Right now, Bond wanted this to be over with.

But there were cups and plans for projects piling up on the desk behind Q, and though he looked as clean and orderly as he always did, the way he moved and the way his face shifted betrayed an exhaustion he had recently spotted more often on the other's face. It was always quite cowardly to fight with wounded opponents.

“I brought the gun back?“

Q took the cue and sighed. Dropped shoulders signaled surrender. For now. Finally, lifting his hand from his hip, he laxly pointed at one of the awful square steel tables next to his desk and turned back towards his annoying laptop plastered with stickers (those should have been more irritating, but they were still Q‘s, after all).

The minions were greeting each other, voices all still a bit rough and dragging from sleep. This was the only place down in the entire bunker that wasn‘t cold and wet, that didn‘t smell of the rotten past. It wasn‘t so glaringly obvious here that they were underground with a heavy ceiling ready to crush them hanging over their heads. In Q‘s workshop and office, the constant heat from servers running around the clock had long since chased away all chill. There were clutter and chaos, thank god, the place was alive with action. Sometimes there would also be a pair of green eyes glistening up at him from the pile of black fur on the cat tree and Bond would greet said pile. Everything glowed with a warm familiarity that Bond didn‘t dare trust.

Q observed him as he placed his gun on the steel tray, and didn‘t avoid his eyes when Bond looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

“We found Le Chiffre‘s daughter.“

Bond's eyebrows rose with a spark of wary curiosity:

“Are we assuming that she is responsible for the attacks?“

“I haven‘t talked to M about it yet, but he wants to send you back out immediately.“

Q had crossed his arms in front of his chest now and widened his stance. The tightness of his lips pressed against each other pulled his face taut. Bond looked down at his gun on the silver tray, ready to be taken away for inspection. Apparently their discussion really hadn‘t been over yet. The headache was hammering in his head.

“If I am supposed to go straight into the next mission, why are you confiscating my gun?“

“I‘m not letting you back out into the field until you get the bullet removed.“

“I don‘t think you have much of a say in that matter?“

“Bond — James, you are and have been endangering yourself, and I am not here to tell you to start taking care of yourself. However, it is my responsibility to ensure your mission's success and to protect you as well as I can. If that means asking M to put you on leave, I am going to do that.“

The expression in Bond's eyes shifted from irritation to something cooler and more calculated, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed. But Q‘s body was locked in place, unmoving and ready for a fight. They had done this before, and even though a part of his chest ached at the thought, they could do this again, and again, until Q learned his bloody boundaries. And if he wanted conflict, he could get that just as well:

“M doesn‘t fucking care, and neither do I. This is my job, and how I complete my missions is none of your business. I‘ve been here years before you waltzed in here demanding respect. I never needed you before and I don‘t need you now. Shut up, and let me do my job.“

Bond had made it a point to step closer to Q, to invade his personal space and force him into giving in, but Q didn‘t butch. Even now that they were standing face to face, Q still met his eyes. Bond had spotted a slight quiver in his lips, but it had passed in a second. The temperature in Q-Branch had dropped, and it was utterly silent now. Stares were drilling into him.

“I‘d strongly advise you against intimidating one of MI6‘s execs, 007. Now, you are going to have that bullet removed and afterwards meet up with M for your briefing. R is going to return your equipment to you later. You are dismissed.“

An angry hot flush had crept up Q‘s neck, but his voice stayed cold and distant.

As he was leaving Q-Branch, something shattered against the brick wall behind him. Bond barely avoided flinching.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mhm, this is a mess. Took me quite a while and I struggled pretty hard to introduce Bond and Bauer properly because I don't want her to come off as this shivering damsel in distress when she isn't. It's gonna be quite a bit of work from here on hehe! Anyway, everybody is still pretty darn angry in this one.
> 
> CW: Mentions of Sexual Abuse, Mentions of Painkillers

Sitting alone underneath cold fluorescent light, Cécile Bauer looked pathetic. There was a sheen of sweat shining on her forehead, and the dark green cotton blouse she was wearing was crumpled to all hell. Still, shoulders drawn tight, she stared straight through the one-way mirror, eyes ticking from one point to another as if she could see them standing beyond.

“So essentially, she claims that Le Chiffre kept a stash of documents for stock in airlines in a villa he built under a different name?“

Tanner glanced at him for a few seconds and then hummed in agreement, and even in the dark of their observation room, he probably spotted Bond furrowing his brows:

“I think she doesn‘t know shit.“

Someone entered the interrogation room and Bauer's head immediately jerked towards the door. She opened her mouth to mutter a greeting, Bond noted. One of their suits sat down in the chair opposite her, and Bauer smiled, although it was more teeth than honest emotion. Tanner had already been observing the scene before Bond had entered a few minutes ago, and didn‘t seem all too sold on his colleague‘s assessment of the situation.

“She's barely eighteen, ran away from home, almost — if we assume she's being honest with us — got kidnapped by someone looking for her because of her father… If you are sceptic because she's panicked, she's got good enough reasons to be-“

“I‘m sceptic because I think that this is a distraction, Tanner.“

“Care to elaborate on that, Bond?“,

M had a folder tucked underneath his armpit upon entering, and he placed it on the table that Bond had been leaning on. His facial expression, Bond was carefully neutral except for a slight pinch downwards around the corners of his mouth. Bond wasn‘t entirely sure if that particular wrinkle wasn‘t already carved into M‘s skin.

“Well, M, isn‘t the timing of all this awfully convenient? A Le Chiffre copycat takes up business and suddenly his supposed daughter turns up out of nowhere, claiming she knows of some stock kept hidden for years and that someone wanted to kidnap her, presumably to get her to give up the location, thus offering us a perfect lead on who might be blowing up airplanes? That's awfully convenient.“

Bond had started striding along the sides of their room as he was speaking, arms locked in front of his chest. M barely cocked an eyebrow at him. Behind the window, Bond spotted Bauer letting out what seemed to be a startled laugh at something the suit in front of her had said. Inside the dark, M tapped lightly on the thin folder he had carried in, and stayed contemptuous:

“That's an impressive piece of deductive thinking you did there, but it's also probably wrong.“

Tanner did his best to muffle his snorted laugh. Bond set his jaw.

“Care to elaborate, M?“

“The laptop that she brought with her is clean of anything suspicious, as far as Q has checked for now. All the tickets for public transport she used to get here are valid. We know she is related to Le Chiffre because we have records and files regarding him that include her, but because she is essentially a civilian we never bothered keeping an eye on her, -“

“Nothing you said really disproves that this isn‘t a hoax. She could be copying her father, and we wouldn‘t know, since we haven‘t kept an eye on her -“

“Bloody hell, Bond, stop being contrarian. To pull off an attack with the scale of blowing up an airplane, she‘d have to have some sort of contacts and resources. And there's nothing, it's as clean a slate as any. The villa is exactly where she said it would be, and it was built for a persona that also holds massive amounts of airline stock that haven‘t been touched in eight years. It all adds up.“

Bond stayed silent, lips tight, and stared out at the young woman. The tension had dropped out of her shoulders now. For some terrifying reason, her eyes looked exactly like Le Chiffre's, glittering with sharp attention. The way her face shifted and betrayed her thoughts in minor twitches was still too familiar. This was just Le Chiffre's poker face plastered on a woman's head, she was just playing them all. Bond wanted to slap it the mask straight off of her.

Tanner had been listening to them quietly, but now that the two of them had ended their debate, he spoke up softly, asking if the German authorities – since she had been declared missing in less than a day, a rather untypical procedure for someone of legal age in Germany – had since disclosed any further information regarding her, and M nodded sharply. Bond glanced over, but didn‘t turn away from the window.

“Someone called police to perform a welfare check on her because of possible sexual abuse. They didn‘t directly find anything concerning and the family vehemently denied that anything could have happened, but then she ran off."

Tanner rubbed his face in his hands and sighed:

“That's messy, of course, and then police probably immediately posted pictures of her to aid search efforts – and whoever was after her probably recognized her as Le Chiffre‘s daughter, leading up to the attempted kidnapping.“

“They probably know she's here as well“,

M‘s arms hung at his side loosely and neither his lips had tightened nor his forehead wrinkled, and Bond honestly was close to snapping, because if this entire situation seemed dangerous even to him, then why wasn‘t the old man at least displeased? His hands were going to end up crumpling the sleeves of his suit.

“Am I the only one in here concerned that they are going to plant a bomb and blow up our HQ again? Because may I remind you that if your theory is correct, these are the people that blew up the 777X prototype half a month ago -“

“Well, that's not really a concern, 007, because you two are going to leave London in a few hours. No reason to blow up HQ if the person they need isn‘t even here.“

Bond made a conscious effort to unclench his hands. This was a disaster. Taking care of Le Chiffre‘s spawn, a practically constant reminder of 2006, of Casino Royale — god, his head was going to explode with the tension building in his temples. For a few seconds, as he noticed the way Bauer's hair reflected fluorescent light, he was tempted to tell M to bugger off and find someone else for the job.

Yet, he didn‘t, because when he‘d met M‘s stare, he had still been able to spot the slight quizzical arc of the other man's eyebrows. M knew bloody well what he was doing. He was probing him, testing to see his limits, and Bond absolutely did not intend to share Bauer's fate and be seated in front of another suit for a psychological evaluation. Despite this, he allowed a bit of growl to slip into his voice:

“Where am I taking the girl?“

* * *

M sent him to Medical beforehand, even if Bond had assured him he‘d be fine multiple times. Annoyingly, the white coat doctors told him after a brief x-ray that to get the bullet shrapnel still locked in his shoulder, they would have to put him under and operate on him. That, however, was a time delay Bond had deemed unacceptable, so he had forced them to dig out the few shrapnel that were close enough to retrieve with local anesthesia and then used all his charm left to politely bully them out of a bottle of painkillers.

When he chucked the painkillers this time, they made him feel less dizzy than they had yesterday, and they sure killed his headache. Thank fuck, he thought, because that's the last thing he‘d need dealing with the spawn of Le Chiffre.

R caught up with him when he was still stuck in Medical and handed him his equipment with a frown. His trusted Walther was back and accompanied by an earpiece that he fully intended to toss out of the nearest window once he was left unsupervised. Bond had avoided telling her about the shrapnel still lodged in his shoulder until one of the white coats had stabbed him in the back and informed her, anyway. There was no medical confidentiality inside MI6. Bond had good enough reasons to stay away from Medical. Instead of scolding him, R had just tightened her lips and jutted out her jaw the slightest bit, which, with her crossed arms, told a story of disapproving. Bond could barely bring himself to care about that. They could disapprove all they wanted, he could do his job without making them happy. The high brunette bun turned to leave but swirled around a final time to glare at him. She wanted to say something else, and then she didn‘t.

* * *

“My name is James Bond. I‘m going to escort you for a while.“

Bond met Cécile for the first time about an hour before they were supposed to leave London and go under. She was still in the interrogation room with the monotone brick walls that made her face look sickly pale, and he hadn‘t met her eyes or greeted her after entering until he had set down a neatly folded stack of clothes onto the cold steel table in front of her. She would need to change into something different before they left, because looking like you had almost been kidnapped (even if you actually had almost been kidnapped) usually happened to draw quite a few stares. The last thing Bond needed today was to be questioned by police because they spotted him with a debauched lady that looked suspiciously like a missing foreigner.

“Cécile Bauer.“

He couldn‘t spot the faintest hint of recognition in her eyes, but Bond still found his skin crawling at the way her brow bones jutted out of her face, setting her eyes back into her skull. He offered his hand for a handshake because he liked to think that he was, after all, still a professional at his job. Cécile outright and openly checked him up and down before taking it and kept her eyes narrowed beneath the shrill fluorescent light, just a few milimeters, just enough for him to notice. Already, he could guess this mission wasn‘t going to be pleasant.

“How long is ' a while'?“

With Le Chiffre‘s bold and veined hands, Cécile explored the fabric of the cotton shirt atop the clothing pile with the same deliberate, confident movements he might have used to shuffle a stack of coins or take up his cards. The light flickered, and she had barely bothered looking up at him as she spoke. Her voice was tinted with an accent fading away at the corners to make space for something aching towards fake Californian.

“We don‘t know yet.“

“Well, that sounds trustworthy.“

“You checked yourself in.“

“I didn‘t exactly expect to be dragged into an interrogation room to be questioned about terrorist attacks that I have, apparently, committed.“

“It's quite common for suspects to be somewhat short-sighted“,

Cécile stared at him, and for a few seconds, the room was entirely quiet, except for the zinging of the lights above. Then, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly, and she chuckled. What should have sounded like Le Chiffre to Bond was merely a normal girl's chuckle, a sound stuck somewhere between a laugh and a snort.

“You are quite aware that I have already been informed that I am not considered a suspect anymore, but rather a witness and involved party?“

“Who's to say we haven‘t lied to you? — Please, follow me, we are leaving.“

Her chair screeched as she pushed it back to get up and to comply. Cécile still watched Bond with an air of undeniable mirth that he found entirely unwarranted considering his job position and appearance, but picked up her stack of clothes anyway. A raised eyebrow beckoned him to make his next move, and because he was clinging to professionalism here, Bond listlessly held the door open for her.

“You know, I actually know that you were involved in my father's death.“

They had been halfway across the bleak brick corridor to the bathroom when Cécile had said it, and she said it like one might say that the weather was quite terrible today, or that the bus was late, with her arms dangling by her side and her eyes still focused straight ahead. Bond blinked twice, and then decided to keep his cool. After all, this might work out in his favour. They kept on walking, Cécile struggling somewhat to keep up next to him. He slowed half a pace.

“I did not get the impression you had recognized me. I could probably ask for you if someone else might be able to escort you if that would make you more comfortable.“

Bond would have liked to know how Cécile had come across his name but forbade himself from asking. As much as M had been trying to convince him, he just wasn‘t sold on the idea that Cécile was truly uninvolved in all of this. Too many coincidences. He couldn‘t let her know she had managed to surprise him once already.

They had reached the toilets now, and Cécile, with her stack of clothing jammed  
between her chest and her crossed arms, looked up at him with a raven-like glint in her eye, her attempt to analyse and understand him on full display. Again, he felt a shadow of a familiar feeling pass through his system, but he couldn‘t place where it had come from. Before he got too much of a chance to contemplate it, she hummed a slight bit and replied:

“No, thank you, I am sure we will be just fine. I do not feel personally attacked by the assassination of Chiffre.“

And with that she vanished behind the bathroom's door, and Bond was left to stare at its white wood.


	4. Chapter 4

The Aston Martin reeked of leather, and Cécile felt awkward in the clothes she‘d been given. The flannel was too tight around her shoulders, the material too rough. Another’s skin and identity wrapped around her. The agent, Bond, had his hands placed loosely on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead and out onto the M1 while overtaking other cars on the motorway in a rush of roaring noise. Her fingertips were tingling with nervous energy.

_Denaturation is the first phase of PCRs, during which the DNA double helix separates into single string DNA due to high temperatures of around 90 to 95°C._

Cécile had expected to cause something of a stir, marching into MI6 and announcing her parental relations.

She hadn‘t expected to be questioned about her father's remaining stock and her possibly committing terrorist attacks of which she had barely heard before. Brick walls painted white and shrill light, cold as a grave — things in the interrogation room could have gone very wrong, had MI6 just been looking for someone to pin the attacks onto. God, she liked to pretend she was more capable of defending herself, but they could have probably twisted her words into a confession had they meant to.

Anyway, her gamble had gained her a bit of useful information at least: There really was stock stashed away.

That had been her first guess after Croak and his colleague had revealed her attempted kidnapping was related to Le Chiffre, but it had taken her the entire bus ride through the dark Euro tunnel stuck in stuffy air to remember her father actually talking of something of the sorts when she‘d last met him, eight years ago.

Back then, days had been sunny heat and light cotton dresses and not a worry in the world. If there had been a hint of raw cruelty distorting her father's smile, she had not been able to spot it back then.

The memory had been buried and was blurry at best, but it had been her bargaining chip to avoid being snatched and sent back home — a cheap bluff based on shriveled shreds of dialogue until the man with the painfully ordinary face in the painfully ordinary suit had told her they had actually found the stockholder under the fake name she‘d remembered Le Chiffre using.

Now that had been a tasty bit of information.

_Annealing is the second phase of PCRs, during which primers will attach themselves onto the single string DNA to provide a starting point for the polymerase enzyme._

Her battle plan had been the following:

MI6 clearly was interested in retrieving the stocks before her kidnapper's boss, and for this to succeed, she was near irreplaceable, because she knew the location. She was protected, and they wouldn‘t hand her over if they needn‘t. To retrieve the stock, they would send her over with some agent or escort. She would befriend them, and upon finding the documents for the stock, would snatch one of them.

If MI6 tried bullying her into giving it back, she would then blackmail them by threatening to inform her own government that the Brits had known about her whereabouts and hadn‘t informed them, worse yet, used her as an informant in their chase after some terrorist.

If they weren‘t willing to bargain, she would cause a diplomatic scandal big enough to get sufficient attention to be kept away from home. If they were willing to bargain, she‘d sell the stock and have plenty enough money to start a new life.

It was foolproof, she had been sure. Just that the M1 led towards up North, not down South towards Greece where the stock was safely hidden in Chiffre‘s villa. Goddammit. Cécile's fingers were rapidly tapping her thighs, and she licked her dry lips. The knot of her intestines contracted with a sharp burst of pain.

Maybe she‘d have to come up with a new game plan.

_Elongation is the third phase of PCRs, during which the polymerase enzyme attaches the nucleotide bases to their respective, complementary partner. If this succeeds, two copies of the original sequence have been formed. Repeat the thermal cycle to keep on amplifying the DNA._

_A PCR is a simple process with which single, short sequences of DNA can be copied and amplified to allow easier scientific study. A PCR is an essential part of, for example, forensic DNA profiles as well as paternity tests._

It kind of sucked that she was going to miss that particular biology test, Cécile thought as the fields kept flying by in a rush of green, and she kept reciting the procedure to help herself calm down; she would have aced that one for sure. At least it proofed she wasn‘t helpless yet, she thought. All her accumulated knowledge and experiences were still there. She had a head on top of her shoulders.

Still, the thought of returning home made her sick; and the idea of being in a car with the trained killer that was part of her biological father's death made her toes and fingertips twitch in suppressed trembles, even if she claimed to be unaffected. If she went out there on her own, Croak would get her. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to solve this situation.

Bond next to her overtook a lorry and glanced at her for a second, and Cécile thought he probably expected her to have a mental breakdown any second. Instead, she stretched out her arms in front of her and sat up straight in her passenger seat:

“Can you tell me where we are going?“

“We are going to a safe house to keep attention away from MI6.“

The texture of the asphalt underneath the Aston's tires changed with a jolt, and the rustling almost swept over the answer she‘d been given. Not that it would have made much of a difference since the answer was absolutely useless to her without concrete information.

Maybe the agent knew that, maybe he was following standard procedures. Cécile couldn‘t tell yet.

Bond's blond hair was greying and thinning around his temples, but it wasn‘t gone, and the lines around his mouth weren‘t dragging his skin down yet. He looked comfortable in his grey cashmere jumper, and Cécile struggled to imagine him in a Casino or involved with murdering men, least him ever having met her father.

She briefly wished he‘d at least grip the steering wheel or cuss at traffic, just some tick or twitch to prove he was a human. Instead, Bond's eyes observed the other vehicles in front of him with slow muse. It sat wrong with her to be the only one not comfortable with her current situation.

Time to push some limits and see how he‘d hold up.

“How did my father die?“

“He got shot in the head?“

“You would know that because you were present?“

Maybe the way he switched lanes this time was a bit rougher than usual. Maybe she was imagining that, since the tendons in his hands showed no sign of tension. Still, he shot her another glance, eyebrow pitched up.

“You are being peculiar, Ms. Bauer.“

Despite herself, the corners of her mouth crept up a bit.

“I‘m sorry if I got the wrong impression, Mr. Bond, but you are the one in a cashmere jumper and a pretentious car whilst you are supposed to be inconspicuous, so I think you are quite peculiar in your own right.“

“Aren‘t you a joy to work with, telling me how to do my bloody job already?“

Ha, she was getting somewhere at least. Nothing quite like driving someone up the wall in the first few hours of getting to know them. And if maybe Bond looked somewhat more amused than pissed off, that was a bonus.

“Did you expect me to be polite? I‘m barely an adult by title, I need to be a bit… testy at times.“

“Ah, the youth is rotten.“

“We are quite alright, you fossil.“

Bond actually suppressed a chuckle, and had he looked at Cécile, he might have spotted her grinning as well. The knot that had been cramping up her stomach for the last few hours unraveled itself a bit. Slowly, she started truly slumping down into her leather seat, even if her fingertips were still twitching a bit.

Well, this might turn out to be not quite as terrible as expected.

* * *

The supermarket had shrill fluorescent lights stacked on the ceiling, and Bond, for once, looked severely uncomfortable. Nothing quite as silly as a fully trained assassin in his designer cashmere jumper, standing in a Lidl at 9 o‘clock in the evening.

Cécile, on the other hand, felt like herself for the first time in days.

Drifting through aisle decked in ugly brownish flooring and stretching to reach the top shelves with the (cheaper) iced coffee was, after all, what she‘d been doing for much of the afternoons of her last school years. Oh, she had missed the shitty music played by over modulated speakers. Makes you want to rip the ear channel straight out of your head.

Bond frowned at the plastic cups in her hand because of course, he did:

“There's probably barely any caffeine in that.“

“It tastes good, though.“

Bond seemed to severely doubt this. They were mostly alone in the shop, save for a few clerks starting to close up for the night. Cécile was sorry for bursting in last minute, but then again, she was pretty hungry. Night had crept in at around 8 o‘clock, and at that point, her stomach had started devouring itself. She‘d forced Bond to pull off the motorway, and he‘d grumpily obliged.

“Look, stop judging me. I‘m a student, I‘m saving up all my money, and most bakeries and Starbucks close before 7 o‘clock. My friends and I can‘t be too picky.“

As if to stress her point, she swept a bag of chocolate croissants from the shelf. Bond looked at her choice of food and did his best not to wrinkle his nose.

“I find it hard to believe you have friends.“

With a bing, the sliding door in the front of the shop slid open, and one of the clerks mumbled a clearly frustrated greeting. They‘d better hurry before they got thrown out. The smell of artificial lemon cleaning product was already weaving its way through the aisles, and Bond tapped his unnecessarily fancy shoe against the flooring.

“Ah, you‘d be surprised. We actually planned to study at the same university after school. I guess that might not work out anymore -“,

“God, what would you even study?“

“Microbiology. Although I‘m not sure if that will still work out when all this is over.“

Her chest tightened briefly at the thought of her uncertain future, but she pushed it aside. There was plenty of time to cry about it when she wasn‘t inside a supermarket.

They were drifting towards checkout now, Bond and her simultaneously avoiding the wet patch of freshly mopped floor. Finally, Bond stopped to look at something he himself might eat for dinner. Thank god, Cécile had started to think he might just photosynthesize for food.

“Microbiology, huh? What are you going to do with that?“

Bond turned over the baked good he had in hand to inspect the ingredients, and there were a few steps of the new customers coming down the aisle. Cécile turned her head towards the sounds and hummed before answering:

“You need microbiological procedures for forensic studies, for example. You could also use it to develop cultures of bacteria with manipulated gens. There's currently a project going on where they are trying to -“

The other customers rounded the corner, and one of the men whispered something. His voice was layered with an accent she couldn‘t place, and it croaked around the vowels — for a brief moment, she was back in Le petite Fleur in France. Standing merely a four meters from her, Croak had a full shock of brown hair, was almost a head taller than Bond, and had a mean-looking, weirdly healed nose. His colleague was slender with crow's eyes. With a pure look of horror plastered on her face, Cécile turned towards Bond, slouched. Ah shit.

As though he had felt the shift in the atmosphere, Bond looked up at her with furrowed eyebrows. She couldn‘t read nor identify if that was concern or anger on his face, and it scared her. The air here was too thick, it wouldn‘t enter her lungs. Her mouth opened on its own to wheeze in a breath. She was suffocating, barely aware of her surroundings. Bond grabbed her arm, and she flinched so hard he almost let go.

Instead, he full force dragged her through the entrance towards the exit. Around her, the glaring white and beige flooring was blurring, shelves smudging. There was no choice but to move her feet.

They had almost reached the exit, plastic wrap crinkling in her hands — the sliding doors were opening -

“Hey, you need to pay for that! —“

Yelling, the shop clerk was coming at them, hands raised. Cécile flinched again. Bond's grip was unmoving, but she could feel eyes drilling into her back, and oh god — head whipping around, she stared square at Croak looking at them.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Then, Bond pulled her through the exit and growled at her to run, and she was being dragged over parking lot asphalt while the sliding door opened again, pounding feet on the ground behind them and around them and everywhere.

They barely reached the Aston before a shot was being fired. Her knees almost gave out at the echo, but then she pried open the passenger door with trembling, numb hands and threw herself in, just in time for Bond to put the car in gear and take off with screeching tires. Croak stood underneath a lamp on the white marking of parking lots with a gun in his hand and a wild glint in his eyes.

Cécile thought she might have nightmares of him forever.

They ran three red lights, they were going 100 in a city with a speed limit of 50, and the Aston loudly complained as Bond yanked the steering wheel to make a sharp turn. Cécile barely noticed, because her hands were shaking in front of her eyes. She still couldn‘t breathe. The chocolate croissants rustled as they fell from her lap. Had she dropped her coffee somewhere?

Bond kept on saying something over and over, and she heard the words, but they didn‘t carry meaning.

* * *

Night had fully set in over the M1, and they were passing a strip of motorway with random lamps. Underneath the constant flicker between orange and black, exhaustion had settled into Cécile's limbs, making it hard to even lift an arm or sit up straight.

Regularly, Bond would check his rear-view mirror, eyebrows even now furrowed in clear concern, not anger. Still, the number plates and colours of the cars behind them changed frequently. No one was following them. They had driven in complete silence, radio turned off for the thirty minutes they‘d been on the road. Bond cleared his throat:

“You should eat something.“

“Those were the men that tried to kidnap me.“

“I got the idea. You still need to eat something, your blood sugar is probably low.“

The plastic wrap around the croissants crinkled horrifically as she pulled it off, but her brain was lagging behind too much for her to do anything about it. Bond didn‘t seem to mind the noise either, with his eyes kept straight ahead and not even a twitch in his fingers or his eyelids.

Instead, he put the radio back on, the volume just loud enough for the mumble of words to be understandable whenever one of them bothered to listen. The announcer listed off accidents and positions of speed cameras, and while they were pulling off the motorway to take a less direct route to the safe house, the smooth raspberry voice of a lady was reporting on some sports event or another set to happen this week.

Shoulders laxly hanging, Bond yawned, and as she was chewing and choking down the sandy-sweet croissant, Cécile thought this short slip of humanity might have delighted her earlier today. For now, she tore off a piece of the soft chocolate filled dough and offered it with a barely audible hum. With slow movements, the food was taken from her hand, and after he‘d swallowed, Bond said into their relative silence:

“You said something about a study going on?“


End file.
